President-elect Trump has announced that he will deport millions of illegal aliens. I believe he may be able to incentivize many of these millions to voluntarily depart at their own expense if they are offered a “reward” for doing so.
The following illegal aliens have demonstrated by their past conduct that they do not respect our criminal and immigration laws:
1) Aliens, who have a criminal history anywhere in the world, including identity theft;
2) Aliens, who entered the United States over the age of 18 years without a valid visa or with a forged passport or visa;
3) Aliens, who have a communicable disease;
4) Aliens, who have at any time been a public charge;
5) Aliens, who have failed to appear in any court or administrative forum, after being ordered by such body to appear; and
6) Aliens, who have voted in any state or federal election;
These illegals cannot be expected or trusted to integrate into our society as law abiding residents, and so should never be “rewarded” for their initial or subsequent unlawful behavior. The United States will gain no benefit from allowing these six categories of aliens to remain, reside, work, visit, or study in our country. They will be obliged to depart our country, not because they are aliens, but because they are lawbreakers. These illegal aliens do not deserve to be rewarded with permanent residence (green cards), let alone U.S. citizenship.
With this in mind, here is my proposal.
Those who fall into the above six categories will be given two years to voluntarily depart, in an orderly fashion. In order to motivate them to voluntarily depart within two years at no expense to the government, they will be given an opportunity to present the circumstances of their “ineligibility” to a “Special Part” immigration judge. The immigration judge will try to assist aliens in these six categories who have unusual or truly exceptional circumstances, and the immigration judge will be expected to exercise wide and humane discretion. There will be no appeal from the judge’s decision to any appellate court or body, administrative or judicial.
Those who do not voluntarily depart within two years will be apprehended through heightened technological identity “tracking” enabled by comprehensive cooperation between all units of government. They will be arrested and deported with due process rights accorded to them, but with no right whatsoever of appeal to the “Special Part” described above.
However, a seventh category of illegal aliens is entitled to substantial relief. These are aliens who entered the U.S. with a valid passport and visa. They were unable to extend or change their visas while remaining in the United States, although sponsored for a job by an American employer, due to our archaic, discriminatory “Catch 22” immigration laws.
Let me explain.
Consider this scenario: An alien enters the U.S. on a student or visitor’s visa, and subsequent to his entry, is offered a permanent job which matches his skills, whether white-collar, blue-collar, or “no-collar.”
The Current Law
With a job offer in hand, the white-collar professional, has the opportunity to extend his non-work visitor’s or student visa until it is changed into a professional work authorized visa (e.g., H, L, O visas), and eventually can adjust his status to a green card, without ever departing the United States.
However, the blue-collar or no-collar worker with a job offer in hand has no legal option (except marrying a U.S. citizen) to do the same thing and thereby remain in the U.S. legally until his non-work visa is changed into a work visa, which can eventually be adjusted to a green card.
Our immigration laws provide for a well-intentioned, but self-defeating draconian penalty for any alien who overstays their visa for in excess of six months and up to twelve months, or in excess of twelve months, no matter the reason for the overstay. The six-to-twelve-month overstay alien may not return to the United States for three years, and the one-year overstay may not return for ten years, even with a pre-approved green card application. There is no existing temporary work visa for a sponsored permanent job available to a blue- or no-collar worker, so he must wait abroad for his green card quota to be reached, which usually takes years, while the 3/10-year penalty applies in any event.
This situation leads to a terrible and gut wrenching “Catch 22” or Hobson’s choice for the alien. These are his “options”:
Does the alien depart the U.S. timely, as the law requires, and wait for his green card quota to be reached, while his job offer “evaporates,” which will automatically cancel his hard-earned green card approval?
Does he remain in the United States and work illegally on or off the books for an American employer who needs him now, and will not wait a few months or years? If the latter, he is in violation of the immigration law of “unlawful presence,” becomes subject to the 3/10-year penalty, and joins the estimated 15,000,000 illegal aliens in the country. If the former, he dutifully departs the United States, his job offer evaporates, and he is stranded outside the U.S. with no job offer, while his American employer has lost his prospective employee.
My guess is that most if not all of these aliens choose to remain illegally.
A Fresh Approach
My proposal sets forth a middle ground to deal with this Catch 22 situation.
Those who are included in this seventh category have admittedly broken our immigration laws, because unlike professionals, these blue-/no-collar workers have had no legal opportunity under our current immigration laws to apply for a temporary job while in the United States in authorized status. This, unlike the professional workers, who may apply for a temporary job and eventually adjust their status to that of a green card holder, and after five years may apply for citizenship. Regardless, my proposal would never allow the seventh category aliens to become U.S. citizens, so as not to reward their unlawful presence and illegal behavior, and thus they can never vote.
However, they will be given every opportunity to obtain a green card – by allowing these seventh category aliens to pre-file an employer’s temporary and/or permanent job-sponsored application before they voluntarily depart the United States within two years of this proposed legislation becoming law.
Congress must pass a new law to waive the 3/10-year bar to return, as well as to enable these blue-/no-collar workers to be processed for temporary work permits at U.S. consulates abroad. These aliens will not be rewarded by being allowed to remain in the United States and apply for work visas. Instead, they will depart, but with due speed, they will be able to obtain their work visa at a U.S. consulate abroad. This “touch back” process will motivate these seventh category aliens to regularize their immigration status within the law, but they will not be rewarded for violating the current immigration laws by allowing them to ever become U.S. citizens.
This “touch back” policy will encourage these seventh category aliens to comply with our new immigration laws and will send a message abroad that the days of disrespecting the United States’ immigration laws are over.
Even if their job offer evaporates, they will nevertheless be entitled to return within six months and find a similar job within six months. However, five years of back taxes must be paid, and they must be able to speak, read, and write rudimentary English. They will be placed at the end of the green card/visa line and they will be granted a green card only when their turn is reached.
If a rationale is needed for this lenient relief, may I suggest that our antiquated immigration laws, as well as the feckless lack of immigration enforcement, has contributed to this seventh category. These seventh category aliens have lived a model life in the United States, and deserve our compassion, as they contribute to our economy. A win-win proposition.
